The 10 most important gaming moments of 2012

Adventure games make a comeback with the help of The Walking Dead

Adventure games were once the backbone of the PC gaming industry. As gaming became more sophisticated and gameplay became more active, gamers turned away from story-focused, slow point-and-click mechanics. However, with Telltale Games single-handedly trying to maintain the genre with the Tales of Monkey Island revisit and the Back to the Future series. With the recent The Walking Dead release, the adventure genre has actually gained some traction. The five-episode game was met with critical acclaim from all corners of the industry, helping bring the genre back into the foreground.

End of Nintendo Power

We all know that the internet displaced print journalism, but that doesn’t make it any less sad when a magazine integral to the beginning of gaming culture goes the way of a Goomba that stood in the path of a very determined plumber. The first issue was published back in July of 1988, just three years after the NES released in North America. The magazine ran for 285 issues, with the last one being published this December. The cover of the last issue is actually a current-gen graphical recreation of the scene on the very first issue’s cover, which was created in clay.

THQ’s Humble Bundle and subsequent bankruptcy

The Humble Indie Bundle has been going strong since May of 2010, spreading its wings and occasionally releasing bundles that don’t contain video games, such as an ebook bundle and a music bundle. Just a few weeks ago, Humble Bundle released their first non-indie bundle, a pack of games from developer THQ. People feared that Humble Bundle might begin turning its back on the indie industry, and when the THQ bundle sold incredibly well, that only exacerbated that fear.

Gamers not only wondered why Humble Bundle would go non-indie, but why THQ would allow people to buy all of their mainstream games for pennies on the dollars. Not too long after the window for buying the bundle closed, THQ declared bankruptcy, somewhat explaining why they attempted to get squeeze every last sale out of their games through a Humble Bundle offering. THQ is currently looking for a buyer.

10-year game of Civ II that won’t end

This was not exactly a moment that will move the gaming industry forward toward a new frontier of interactivity, but this literally ten-year-long game of Civilization II captivated the internet. Also, it’s a ten-year-long game of Civilization II! The game world ended up with the player in a stalemate with enemy AI forces in such a way that neither side could make any kind of permanent progress. Reddit helped the story pick up traction, creating a subreddit just to figure out how to beat the game, and even Sid Meier himself commented on the ridiculous scenario. Eventually, a redditor actually solved the scenario, posting not only the successful strategy, but the save file itself.

Though 2012 saw some significant developments in the video game industry, such as some new consoles launching and the model for developer funds shifting to something more crowdsourced, we still haven’t heard much about what the more powerful next-gen consoles will be like, and the landscape of PC gaming hardware hasn’t been revolutionized in quite a while. This was a decent year for gaming overall, but with new Sony and Microsoft consoles on the horizon, next year could be even bigger.